By Faith Whitehouse (16)

So here I am on the 140 coach coming home after an immense work experience with a TV company in central London. The company was called ‘Prospect Pictures’ and have produced many programmes from ‘The One Show’ to ‘The Daily Cooks’ and also documentaries like ‘Tourette’s ’ and ‘Autistic Superstars’. I got offered to do work experience with them in April of this year when my brother was on the ‘Autistic Superstars’ programme with Reggie Yates. So after four days of gnome hunting, researching, eating potato salads for lunch and catching the tube, here are my highs and lows of work experience.

 

Day One

It’s always said that the first day of work experience is the worst day and this was certainly true for me. I remember jumping off the train onto Platform six at Charring Cross and not having a clue what to do, I felt like I should have a free-run on the tube and go shopping but this sixteen year old budding journalist was ready to explore and get her teeth into TV and media. I made my way to the tube station, it was the first time I had been on the tube by myself but I wasn’t really nervous as I like travelling and having my iPod blaring out the new ‘Vampire Weekend’ album certainly helped.

After catching the wrong tube, I arrived at the office at 10:20am, twenty minutes late. The building that greeted me didn’t look very glamorous and TV-like. It was a grey three-story building with small windows and the other media companies names were etched on the name plate on the left. Inside, I was greeted by Bhups (head of production). Bhups told me about the company and gave me a tour of the office. The office on the third floor consisted of three rooms and the aroma of coffee and tea surrounded it as well as media people typing away and ringing up potential TV stars.

Pasted on the walls of the office were posters and TV reviews – A3 size to highlight the company’s work, there was also many newspapers scattered on the desk and TV guides. I was quickly welcomed into the team and armed with a company email address and a telephone I was ready to gain as much experience as possible. My first task for that day was to create ideas for the films (inserts) the company could use. Before this, I was given six CD’s to watch their previous work. My task was to make notes and get a feel about how the films were made, to check out what the company had done before. After, I had watched the inserts Adam, my boss and head of development came over and gave me my second task. My second task was to be a researcher and research ideas for the ‘One Show’. This was done by reading cuttings from the newspaper and internet articles, and then placing them in a log giving directions to create the films on the ideas. This is known as development work and many researchers do this task every day. At 5pm, I was allowed to go home and after quickly grabbing a potato salad lunch and dripping the grease over my work my log was half-done. I didn’t realize work experience was going to me so tiring!

 

Day Two

My second day in work experience started with me bounding into the office in a happy mood and messing up the company’s tea order. When I got to my desk and started up my computer, it blinked at me and buzzed. I had one new message. I opened it eagerly to see what my tasks were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was from Adam and it seemed today I was being the runner for the company. A runner is basically someone who completes tasks for the company and hunts out various things such as books or interviews people to build up to bigger tasks for the company. I was looking forward to being a runner, to get into TV you have to start out as one. The email encrypted with the company’s logo asked me to carry out the following tasks:

1)  Can you get us some garden gnomes for our piece for the ‘One Show’. Look in discount stores and any home shops around LondonWH Smiths and ‘Foyle’s’

2) Need a book on the ‘history of the garden’, can you look in

3) Can you research the history of the front and back garden

I took a long breath in, wow, garden knowledge! I had no idea where to start, gardening did not interest me at all but after using Wikipedia and phoning the garden museum I had the information about front and back gardens behind me. At 12pm, it was my lunch-break I was given three hours and £50 to find garden gnomes and a book on the social history of the garden. I was excited, I was being let lose in London to find gnomes. My first stop was a sandwich store for an on the go sausage roll, after that I walked up Hammersmith high Street wandering in and out of the pound type shops looking for gnomes. I found one in Poundland which I brought for the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then got the tube to Shepherds Bush; the area where the BBC television studios is located and looked around the stalls at ‘Shepherds Bush Market’. I found no gnomes just a lot of fruit and realizing I only had one hour left I hurried over to the ‘Westfield Shopping Centre’ where I checked out Waterstones and WH Smith for the book on garden history. There I found out that the book was in second-hand bookshops in central London and Foyle’s, one of the biggest book stores in the UK. After returning to the office to deliver my findings, I was allowed home early to phone around second-hand book shops and garden centres for gnomes. When I got home, my feet ached and I was up till 9 o clock phoning around and researching book stores in London. Finally my work for that day was done and I made a plan to spend the day in London looking for the needed items.

Day Three

Today, I was awaked by an early-morning text from Adam telling me to spend the day in London as a runner looking for the items. My first call-point was to check out the charity shops for gnomes in the area I was staying in. I found none there so I got the 9:40 train to London and after grabbing a Big Mac, I was ready for the hunt at 10:30.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got the tube for two stops to Foyle’s. The bookshop shone over the street it was on and from looking up the four floors I could see books gleaming out of the windows. I went in and zoomed straight up to the gardening section where I found a book on ‘garden history’, it was important that I wrote the information from this book for the company so it was reliable and backed up the other information I found.

After Foyle’s. I got the circle line to Farrington which was a thirty minute ride away from central London. Farrington was where the garden history society was based. Unfortunately they were shut. After browsing through second-hand bookshops and home stores for gnomes and books, I made my way to Waterloo East to catch the tube to the ‘Garden Museum’. Sadly, my knowledge of London failed here and I did not know where I was going so I called it a day and travelled home gnome-less. When I got home, I went to the loc al garden centres looking for gnomes and after an hour I found one, which the company loved.

Day Four

My last day today, I arrived at the office promptly and was greeted by a few post-it notes by Prospects employees asking me to Google some information and read articles for the development of the shows they were working on. I found the information and after reading ‘The Guardian’ newspaper I placed the new-found stories in the ideas log. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also helped browse the internet for potential actors for a new classical-spin off show. After eating my last potato salad lunch, I had my evaluation meeting where I was told that I did well and they would happily recommend me.  At about 3pm, Adam set me on producing proposals. This was an A4 document stating an idea for the BBC. I had a lot of decision and power as the proposal decided how to film it, where to film it, presenter (talent), when to film it and what will the insert (film) include. I enjoyed this task a lot as I realised that researchers have a lot of power and can create and produce whole programmes. At 5pm, after saying my goodbyes and returning the petty cash, I made my way through Hammersmith tube station for the last time and boarded my train home feeling proud of myself for what I had done.

So was it a worthwhile experience?

I have learnt that we should all have respect for the research and development team on TV as even though their names are never on the credits they do a lot and without them we would not have many programmes that spill accurate information. I have also learnt that working in TV is hard work and not all about interviewing bands and going to events, a lot of it is planning that and structuring your week on a nine to five basis. Even so, doing work experience has made me even more eager to start a career in media or newspapers and I feel lucky to be able to have had this experience. Another thing is when you’re at your placement ask and seek for every bit of experience you can do as at times I found it boring but when I asked for tasks I was given them. My final advice is to seize any opportunity going in media and TV as the business is becoming competitive and it’s important to have experience behind you whether it’s writing reviews for a small magazine or doing work experience at the BBC. Just go for it!